FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82  
83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>   >|  
is that we are only able to argue conclusively that, besides the physical form, we have a non-material soul, or a self. And our Lord, whose teaching was always eminently practical, went no further. We are conscious of a "self"--something that remains, while the body continually grows and changes. There was in _Punch_, some time ago, a picture of an old grandfather, with a little child looking at a marble bust representing a child. "Who is that?" asks the little one; and the old man replies, "That is grandfather when he was a little boy." "And who is it now?" rejoins the child. One smiles at the picture, but in reality it conceals a very important and a very pathetic truth. Nothing could well be greater than the outward difference between the grey hairs and bowed figure and the little cherub face; and yet there was a "self"--a soul, that remained the same throughout. In Platonic language, while the [Greek: eidolon] perpetually changes, the [Greek: eidos] remains. We have, therefore, evidence as positive as the nature of the subject admits that we are right in speaking of the _body and the soul, or self_. And as we cannot connect the higher reasoning, and, above all, conscience and the religious belief, as a "property" of physical structure, we conclude that the Scripture only asserts facts when it attributes both to the soul, as a spiritual element or nature belonging to the body. Man is essentially one;[3] but there is both a material and a non-material, a physical and a spiritual element, in the one nature. But, being a spiritual element, that part of our nature necessarily has two sides (so to speak). It has its point of contact with self and the world of sense, and its point of contact with the world of spirit and with the Great Spirit of all, from whom it came. _Because_ of that higher "breath of lives" given by the Most High, man possesses the faculty of _consciousness of God_ (i.e., the higher spiritual faculties), besides the consciousness of self, or merely intellectual power regarding self and the external world. Therefore, when an Apostle desires to speak very forcibly of something that is to affect a man through and through, in every part and in every aspect of his nature, he speaks of the "whole spirit, soul, and body." To sum up: all that we know from the Bible is that God gave a "soul" (nephesh) to the animals, in consequence of which (when united to the physical structure) the functions of life and the p
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82  
83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

nature

 

spiritual

 

physical

 
element
 

higher

 

material

 

grandfather

 
spirit
 

consciousness

 

contact


picture

 

structure

 
remains
 

conclude

 

Spirit

 
Scripture
 

necessarily

 

essentially

 

belonging

 

attributes


asserts
 

speaks

 
affect
 

aspect

 

functions

 

united

 

nephesh

 

animals

 
consequence
 

forcibly


desires
 

possesses

 

faculty

 

breath

 
external
 

Therefore

 

Apostle

 

property

 
faculties
 

intellectual


Because

 

replies

 

representing

 

marble

 
reality
 

conceals

 

important

 

smiles

 
rejoins
 

teaching